MICHELLE BRANCH: NO LONGER SPITTING HOT FIRE

Late last year, Michelle Branch went rom The Spirit Room to the crazy room, posting a lengthy anti-industry screed on her website (you can find it on the Velvet Rope; just search the terms "Michelle Branch flies off the handle"). Ostensibly pissed off about over the hold-up of her long-in-the-works side project, The Wreckers, Branch then devolves into a full-on meltdown by the third paragraph:

I would give nothing more than to play music in a shitty bar and fold clothes at The Gap for a living. My "being famous" has done nothing but ruin my relationship with my parents, mostly my Father and it has made me hate doing what I used to love more than life itself...playing music....I have maybe written two songs in the past year. That's ridiculous. This isn't fun for me anymore. I'm sick of sucking dicks to get my music heard, putting on a fake smile, and saying things that are acceptable.

So you can see why it was taken down. But the strange footnote is that a few weeks ago, Maverick finally gave the Wreckers a release date, and launched a brand-new fancy MySpace page, complete with a blog co-written by Branch. But it would appear that Branch has rethought her smile-faking ways (not so sure about the other things):

Everything is going as perfect as could be *knock on wood* it's almost too good to be true...keep on keepin' on!

Hmmm...how did Maverick buy her silence? Maybe they put her into a bootcamp-style reform school, making her fold Gap capri pants all day. Or maybe they gave her some free Madonna tickets.